The PIL, filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, has said that Hindus are minority in these states but their legitimate benefits are being siphoned of arbitrarily to the majority, because of non-identification and non-notification of minorities at the State level.

“The Union Government offered 20,000 scholarships in field of technical education for minority students. In J&K, Muslims are 68.30% and government allotted 717 out of 753 scholarships to Muslim students, but none to Hindu students,” the petition said.

As per a 1993 notification by the Centre, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis were granted minority status in India and Jains were added in the list in 2014.